Just bought a place with a pool, didn’t really want one but the price was right and the interest rates were down so here we are.
I don’t have any idea how to maintain one of these things, and too frugal to pay someone to do something that I can do myself.
Any tips, shortcuts, or hacks that y’all can recommend?

Rent a jackhammer to bust up the bottom and top half of the sides.
A few truckloads of fill and one of topsoil, w/skidloader to spread/pack it down.
Then some grass-seed or squares on top.
DONE! (and your cheapest option going forward)

I got a break on my insurance for having extra water in case of a fire.
Otherwise they a pain in the a$$

I’d start here: https://www.troublefreepool.com/forums/

Tons of info on maintenance, etc. also probably be worth your while to pay someone to do a “pool school” and show you how everything works. May save you an expensive bill down the road.

We had a pool for 28 years and one of the happiest days of my life was the day we sold that house. If your pool is chlorine, you might want to think about converting it to salt water. We had ours converted and the cost of maintaining it went to practically nothing. One thing I learned early on was to run the pump a lot.

3 things you DON'T WANT ------------ a horse, a pool, and a motorcycle.

Not going to fill it in, we think it will be great when the grandvarmits come over.
Thanks for the link above krmitchell!

I have one of those floaty things for chlorine tablets but the tablets are not dissolving, can I put a couple of the tablets in the suction strainer of the filter pump without fuzzing something up ?

X3. As much as I like horses.

What equipment do you have? Pump/filter

Those tabs are very slow to dissolve, especially with low temps now. Get a test kit and know what everything means. You want water balance.

Free/total chlorine
PH
Hardness
Alkalinity
Cyanuric acid

Whichever chemicals you add to change the #’s could affect another one so pay attention.
Start out right and stay on it. If you let it get out of whack, it’s a lot more work.

It’s a diatomaceous earth filter with a 2” 220V pump if that helps.

Pretty good video explaining things. Watch your pressures. That’ll tell you how often to backwash.

Uhh, why do you not want a motorcycle?

,

IFIFY

Pool School is a must for newbies. The more you run the pump, the less trouble you'll have.

Yeah if you’re completely new, you need to learn up like Jimbo says. Also, I’d never not run the system myself.

1-learn the actual volume of your pool so you measure chemicals correctly.
2-we know you have a DE filter, and it’s 2” piping but what’s the HP and volume of your particular pump? For turnover purposes?
3-what other equipment is in place? Gages, valves, sight glass, flow meter etc.
4-how old are the current filters?
5-any signs of anything anywhere as far as plaster chipping, any metal corrosion, is there an auto-fill anywhere in the deck? It’ll be a round cover with 3 screw holes and will have a ballcock

Take a picture of your equipment (pumps/filter/etc) and that can help identify what you are working with.

I’ll take some pictures tomorrow and post up.
I took a water sample in to Leslie’s pool supply today and picked up the chemicals that they recommended, some of it was probably fluff.
Thanks for the responses guys.

Leslies will never send you away empty handed. They will ALWAYS try to sell you something.

Bill, in your entire adult life have you ever owned a horse, a pool, or a motorcycle?



You keep commenting on things which you have no real life experience with.

Pump and filter are rated @ 120 GPM.
Leslie’s estimated pool @ 22.2 k gallons.

I’m trying to figure out how to make the pump suction suck from the scuppers at the water level line.
Heck, I qualified onboard three different fast attack submarines back in the day, surely we can figure this out!

Motorcycles are dangerous, thats about their only problem. Not hard to work on, super fun to ride, and cheap on gas. Cheap insurance too.

A little hard to tell from those pics and I'm assuming nothing is labeled but your main drain/skimmer suction should be coming from those pipes on the right coming out of the ground w/ the valves. Looks like you have two skimmers so if no water is being pulled into the skimmers one of those valves is in the "off" position and its the skimmer suction. The other should be your main drain. Can't figure out what that far right pipe is though.

Edit: Did you have an inspection on the pool done? If not, it might be worth doing.....a worthwhile inspector can help walk you through how it works as well.

Boytom left turns off/on A main drain on the bottom.
To the right is the Skimmer valve you can toggle the two skimmers.

Top one allows you to go from one side to the other on the main drains. All depends on what you’re trying to do. If you want more skimmer suction, close the bottom drain some.